WHY
WE ARE ASKED TO RECEIVE OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE AS OUR PATRONESS…OF OUR
COUNTRY, OF OUR FAMILY, OF OUR HOMES, OF OUR FAITH…AS THE CHURCH HAS
PROCLAIMED HER…THE STAR OF THE NEW EVANGELIZATION:

Pope
Benedict XIV decreed that Our Lady of Guadalupe should be the
national patron (in Mexico), and made December twelfth a Holyday of
Obligation with an Octave. He also ordered the composition of a
special Mass and Office (1754).

In
1908, His Holiness, Pope Saint Pius X granted indulgences which may
be gained in any part of the world for prayer said before a copy of
the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. His
prayer to Our Lady of Guadalupe, where he entrusts Our Lady of
Guadalupe with the protection of the Sovereign Pontiff and asks her
intercession for the holy Church and the keeping of our faith, is
enriched with an indulgence of 500 days in 1908.In 1910, His Holiness, Pope Saint Pius X, declared the Virgin
of Guadalupe Patroness of Latin America.

In
1945 His Holiness, Pope Pius XII declared that the Virgin of
Guadalupe was the Queen of Mexico and Empress of the Americas and
that She had been
painted “by brushes that were not of this world”. He also
declared Her to be the Patroness of the Americas in 1946.

In
1961 Pope St. John XXIII also declared her as Mother of the Americas
and addressed Her as Mother and Teacher of the Faith to the peoples
of the Americas.

His
Holiness, Pope St. John Paul II has prophesized that “the Basilica
of Our Lady of Guadalupe would be the center from which the light of
Christ’s evangelization would lighten the world through the
Miraculous Image of His Mother”. And declared that “December
12th, all the American Continent, celebrate together, a Liturgical
Holy Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mother and light of the new
evangelization of America. In
1979 Pope John Paul II called Her the “Star of Evangelization”.

In
1999 on the 5th pastoral visit of His Holiness, John Paul II to the
Virgin of Guadalupe, the Church proclaimed Her as Patroness of the
Americas, Empress of Latin America, and the Protectress of Unborn
Children.

As
such She is the Patroness of our homes, our families, our marriages, our
children, our faith. That is why now, in a time of destruction of family
and faith that we must look to The Mother of God, The Virgin Mary, Our
Lady of Guadalupe as that hope for a renewal of faith in our homes.